National efforts to enhance local climate policy in the Netherlands

Abstract

This work investigates how and why climate change policy initiatives are taken at a local level against the background of the evolution of national policy in the Netherlands. The central government actively promotes climate policy initiatives at a local level through subsidies related to a menu of possible action. The case studies illustrate how different cities make different choices; thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of a flexible policy. The work concludes that transferring authority and resources to the local level may make it easier to develop and effectively implement climate change policy; but that, as yet, there is no hard evidence to demonstrate whether this is indeed the case as the policies have only just been initiated.